Narrowing this list down to 20 posts was torture, as we published so many important articles over the past year, and continue to reach more and more readers every month. But the gods of end-of-year online media say it must be done. So without further ado, here are the 20 pieces that created the biggest waves across the interwebs in 2015.
1) “You’ve heard of rape culture, but have you heard of pedophile culture?” – Alicen Grey
2) “Ten things every woman should know by the time she’s 36” – Meghan Murphy
3) “Reinforcing male privilege: The Trudeau cabinet, Andrew Coyne, and the mythology of ‘merit'” – Michael Laxer
4) “Don’t worry, Justin Trudeau will never be hurt by sexist objectification” – Elizabeth Pickett & Meghan Murphy
5) “Aging while female is not your worst nightmare” – Lori Day
6) “You can’t ‘feel’ race, but can you ‘feel’ gender? On Rachel Dolezal, Caitlyn Jenner, and unspeakable questions” – Meghan Murphy
7) “Shit liberal feminists say: SWERF” – Jindi Mehat
8) “Humans of New York: Believe women first” – Meghan Murphy
9) “Male violence is the worst problem in the world” – Lori Day
10) “Patriarchy, male entitlement, and capitalist greed killed Amy Winehouse, not boozing” – Meghan Murphy
11) “Why I no longer hate ‘TERFs'” – Penny White
12) “Nine things that really do make you a better feminist than everyone else.” – Meghan Murphy
13) “Millenials co-opting intersectionality: The new way to say, ‘My feminism is better than yours.'” – Jess Martin
14) “On corporate feminism and the appropriation of the women’s movement” – Meghan Murphy
15) “The sexiest oppression” – Natasha Chart
16) “A list of things I think about Rihanna’s #BBHMMVideo” – Meghan Murphy
17) “Maybe what feminism needs is separatism, not inclusion” – Jocelyn Macdonald
18) “How to manufacture consent in the sex trade debate” – Raquel Rosario Sanchez
19) “Erasure” – Meghan Murphy
20) “Of monsters and men” – Ernesto Aguilar
A big, huge, grateful shout out must go to Susan Cox, who pitched and launched What’s Current last December, something we’ve published five days a week ever since. It’s allowed us to highlight feminist work from around the world and bring attention to important news stories almost every single day (not to worry, we took a couple of holidays off here and there). Her hard work on this feature and her ongoing contributions to the site have been invaluable.
Also, this past year, we had Jess Martin with us as Feminist Current’s first-ever intern! She produced so much great stuff over 2015, including the “Feminist Theory Fridays” series and a number of absolutely fascinating interviews with leaders in the global women’s movement. Jess has also, recently, been working with us as an editor on the site (something we desperately needed)! You can count on hearing more from her in 2016.
I can’t tell you how much it means to me that we’ve been able to publish so many feminist voices, from across the world, here at Feminist Current. I’m ever-inspired by the growing passion and interest in radical critiques and analyses of misogyny, misogynist industries such as the sex industry, and liberal efforts to co-opt feminism, simultaneously softening and sexing up our movement in order to make it more saleable. Thank you so much to all of our readers, contributors, donors, and to every sister in this movement, working towards our collective liberation, in any way they can.
Solidarity in 2016 and beyond. Until we win.